Historians' Perspectives Every situation can be viewed from so many different angles that it is very difficult for any two people to agree on what is happening. Ten people could look at the same situation and create ten different theories or hypotheses about what is happening. This is because no two people have the same background, no two people have the same experiences, and no two people think exactly the same way. These factors combine to distinguish each person as an individual. Each person has the ability to interpret the same situation differently. This most often occurs when a historian has a theory about a time period or historical event. One historian might look at the assassination of John F. Kennedy and think it was a government conspiracy, while another might think of it as simply a former Marine going crazy and killing the president. Still on the same topic, a third historian can combine the facts of both topics to create an entirely new view. This is exactly what happened after Richard Hofstadter wrote his book The Age of Reform. He discussed progressivism in his book in 1955, which was not written as fact but rather as opinion. Three different articles were subsequently written on the same topic from different angles. Richard L. McCormick, Paula Baker, and Peter G. Filene all wrote articles that agreed or disagreed with Hofstadter. In some places they completely disagreed with points made by Hofstadter, but then in the same article they agreed and supported a point made by Hofstadter. All four people wrote on the same topic but all four had different views. This was their right to act as individuals and in some places they had similarities, but then in others they moved to other sides of the spectrum. Hofstadter in his book, The Age of Reform, analyzed the Reform Era as a period of time from 1896. to the 1930s. During this period of time, he then divided it into three separate sections or movements. The first section was the Populist movement, the second was the Progressive movement, and the third was the reforms implemented during the New Deal. It starts with the populist movement and how it started based on the agrarian myth in rural and southern areas. This myth made farmers believe that they play an important role in society and that their work has special value.